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Gender roles throughout literature
Essay on social construction
Gender roles throughout literature
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Labelling persons according to the levels in the society is strictly manifested everywhere. This designation within people is shown in the novel’s text, “The trouble was, I just didn’t want to do it. I felt more depressed than sexy, if you want to know the truth.” (Salinger 96). Holden is talking about a young prostitute named Sunny who comes to him because of his agreement to have sex, although he declines after he meets her. His rejection to this represents his depression mostly, but also his thought of categorizing someone as a prostitute and having sex with her as stereotype and corrupt. Sex hugely impacts one’s loss of innocence according to what society mostly thinks. Although people just create this idea in their minds, which shows being …show more content…
immature rather than open-minded. As becoming adults, people tend to break into different paths whereas they should be aware of the wider world they go into. This awareness has been constructed in Jane’s mind as Holden narrates, “We were playing checkers. I used to kid her once in a while because she wouldn’t take her kings out of the back row.” (Salinger 78). This line seems to be a inane habit that Jane does as a child, however, her move illustrates herself establishing a barrier against anyone who tries to harm her, especially her cruel stepdad. Jane’s personality reminds the readers to build awareness against the manipulative thinking of the society. People tend to categorize themselves, due to the social constructs that have been ruining the mind of individuals.
A prominent case of this constructionism is carried in the short story, The Friday Everything Changed, “Because the boys were stronger and sat near the back they usually got the National Geographics first, ... while us girls had to be satisfied with the Junior Red Cross News…” (Hart 1). This obviously emphasizes the domination of males among females. Due to men’s masculinity, this social construct is developed and the fight against men and women around the world consistently occurs. Certainly, men and women have different anatomy and structure, but this does not mean that they have unequal rights due to this dissimilarity. Moreover, this division between genders is apparent in the text, “The first thing, clearly evident by recess on Monday morning, was that the boys had decided not to let us girls field at softball anymore…” (Hart 3). This line classifies the boys as better than girls in softball or in any sports at all, that they had the right to ban them from playing as well. Noticeably, this is considered wrong and unjust since no one has the right to tell anyone what to do or not, despite the levels that the people have
integrated. This social constructionism must be ceased, to avoid the conflicts between human beings. Everyone has equal rights and responsibilities despite varying genders. The thinking of the society has managed to create fear around those who feel under the authorities, which is extensively immoral. All of these social constructs have manipulated innocent minds of the society. Presuming that the path towards adulthood leads to the loss of innocence is false as the novel identifies. The novel and the short story provide the readers with moral lesson of being mindful about particular matters around the society, which refers to their opinions and desires.
Today, women and men have equal rights, however, not long ago men believed women were lower than them. During the late eighteenth century, men expected women to stay at home and raise children. Women were given very few opportunities to expand their education past high school because colleges and universities would not accept females. This was a loss for women everywhere because it took away positions of power for them. It was even frowned upon if a woman showed interest in medicine or law because that was a man’s place, not a woman’s, just like it was a man’s duty to vote and not a woman’s.
Throughout history our understanding of the world has been manufactured through the judgment of human beings. The overall change and shift in paradigms can be explained by social construction theory. An article written by Carole S. Vance discusses the topic of social construction theory and illustrates how it impacts gender roles. Social construction can be defined as: a critical subject of reality that analyzes the ideas of a particular group or culture based on society and the aspects of society (education, religion, government etc.) Another article “Feminist Critiques of the Public/Private Dichotomy” written by Carole Pateman explains how men had placed women in a hypothetical bubble that is dominated by men. Men have always been looked
Holden never seems interested in anything that he does. When he goes back to New York, he goes to all kinds of shows and movies and ends up uninterested half way through. When Holden goes to see a movie at Radio City Music Hall he tells a little bit about the movie and then says, “I’d tell you the rest of the story, but I might puke if I did. There isn’t anything to spoil, for Chrissake” (Salinger, 139). This shows that Holden becomes easily uninterested in normal things, which is a common cause of depression. The whole time Holden is in New York, he goes out to things but ends up uninterested extremely fast. The first night he is in New York, an elevator operator gets Holden a prostitute and he is excited and felt sexy. Once the girl arrives and takes off her dress, his mood completely changes and he wants her to leave. He says “The trouble was, I just didn’t want to do it. I felt more depressed than sexy, if you want to know the truth” (Salinger, 96). Just like being uninterested in normal activities is a symptom of depression, so is being uninterested in sex. Holden gets excited and nervous when he talks about sex, but w...
Realistically, when someone is more powerful, they have the ability to set the rules. Men have historically held power in society, which means that women did not have as much stance or freedoms as men have had in the past. For example, Canadian women did not have the right to vote until the year 1916. This factor has continued to trail into the present day, creating the ‘weak’ image towards women, overall forcing and pushing men to become the opposite of this factor. Thus, cultural ideals of masculinity rely on the ideas of femininity through patriarchy and gender binaries. The emphasis on characteristics of men are being exaggerated, as society is pressuring men with unattainable standards of masculinity such as being tough, muscular and buff. Men continue to conform to these characteristics, in the fear of being oppressed through exclusion, which only strengthens society’s standards even more. This leads to more societal pressures on men, thus leading men to experience more societal pressures in the fear of feeling excluded. These “systems of inclusion and exclusion are divisions or barriers that prevent people from joining and belonging.” (50). For example, if a man wears nail polish, they may be oppressed and excluded through facing ridicule and bullying, because wearing nail polish is considered “girly”, therefore this boy is rebelling against society’s socially
Through the majority of the book, Holden repeatedly speaks about having “the time”; yet, however, he states that when he gets close to doing it, he stops because the girl hinders him. Holden has not proceeded with his desire to have “the time,” even when he hires a prostitute. When Holden first sees the prostitute, Sunny, he loses the urgency and desire to finally have sex. “I took her dress over to the closet and hung it up for her. It was funny. It made me feel sort of sad when I hung it up. I thought of her going in a store and buying it, and nobody in the store knowing she was a prostitute just thought she was a regular girl when she bought it. It made me feel sad as hell—I don’t know why exactly” (95-96). Holden imagines others thinking that Sunny is your average woman shopping, not knowing what kind of woman she truly is. From the contents of Holden’s mind, this section is an example of Holden him searching for a tiny trace of innocence left within Sunny. “ ‘Me? Twenty-two.’ ‘Like fun you are.’ I...
In this novel, Salinger denotes innocence by the way Holden views a variety of characters. First, Jane Gallagher, Holden’s childhood friend, displays innocence through her actions, and Holden’s opinions of them. She shows this trait by the unique way she played checkers with Holden. Holden describes this saying, “What she’d do, when she’d get a king, she wouldn’t move it,” (Salinger 31). This demonstrates her protectiveness and innocence, and additionally can be used to show her irreproachable lifestyle. Another thing that promotes Jane as an innocent character is the way Holden claims to know that she did not let Stradlater get sexual with her, while on their date. By assuming this, Holden shows that Jane is sexually innocent, and will always be seen by Holden as a permanent virgin. Another character that portrays innocence is a young boy Holden hears walking on the curb of the street singing, “If a body catch a body coming through the rye,” (115). This boy displays purity by naively walking next to the curb, while cars are rushing a couple feet away from him. This boy’s actions show being on the line of adolescents, the side walk, and adulthood, the street, while not falling into either side completely. Holden admires this boy’s morality because Holden is at the point in his life in which this is happening. Lastly, Holden’s younger sister, Phoebe, displays innocenc...
Gender inequality has been a major issue for many centuries now. Societies insist in assigning males and females to different roles in life. The traditional stereotypes and norms for how a male and female should present themselves to the world have not changed much over time. But individuals are more than just their gender and should have the right to act and be treated the way they want. The novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
In the first example Holden’s masculinity is fragile, and being a man is based solely on not being a woman. For instance, when Holden is first due to meet with the prostitute he has told the reader that he is a “sex maniac”. Only to reveal that just shortly before the prostitute arrives he is still a virgin. Holden tells the reader that he has had plenty of chances to have sex however, something always happens and he cannot. He starts to
Society is constructed of people living together, were many ideas and stereotypical ideas are laid out. Based on the norms that were created, men and women try to act and perform the duties, where others who don’t seem different from that society. People’s ideas and concepts allow work and other activities to be placed into categories based on whether it is feminine or if it is masculine and only men can perform that task. Similarly, in the short story “Sweat” by Zora Neale Hurston the protagonist Delia Jones, is both masculine and feminine because of the roles she has taken as a worker and a wife in her marriage relationship explaining how a women can possess both qualities that traditional men and women have.
Thesis Statement: Men and women were in different social classes, women were expected to be in charge of running the household, the hardships of motherhood. The roles that men and women were expected to live up to would be called oppressive and offensive by today’s standards, but it was a very different world than the one we have become accustomed to in our time. Men and women were seen to live in separate social class from the men where women were considered not only physically weaker, but morally superior to men. This meant that women were the best suited for the domestic role of keeping the house. Women were not allowed in the public circle and forbidden to be involved with politics and economic affairs as the men made all the
...e, women are the weaker of the two sexes. Women are slaves and spoils of war, if they are valued for sex they are used for sex. The universal portrayal of women causes a reevaluation of modern day gender balances by the reader.
In Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, the physical and psychological unraveling of the narrator, Holden Caulfield, is related through his inarticulate, but sincere voice. Salinger weaves Holden's narration in a way that reflects the young character's age through his words and thoughts. At 16 years young, Holden's narration is often pessimistic, at times enthusiastic, and above all else contradictory. The same could be said about his thoughts concerning the topic of sex, which is a growing source of anxiety for the 16 year old. And Holden is confronted by it quite often in the course of his weekend-and-a-bit adventure. But, unlike most of the teenagers surrounding him, Holden views sex in a different light. Through the narration of his actions and attitudes concerning sex, Holden reveals his sensitivity, innocence, and fear of change.
Not only is the general image of the adult world ominous to Holden but the actual adults in his own life seemed to live hopeless lives as well. According to Holden they are greedy, phony, corrupt, boring, and in many cases all or more than one of the characteristics. Holden encounters a prostitute, named Sunny, the first night out of Pency Prep at a trashy hotel. Sunny’s loss of innocence and her corruption sadden Holden greatly. They are nearly the same age yet she already fell into the dark adult world (Lundquist 15). Holden can still see her youthful innocence in her expression, “like fun you are” (Salinger 94). He thinks, “It was a funny thing to say. It sounded like a real kid” (Salinger 94). Holden becomes extremely depressed and in effort to preserve some innocence, he does not have sex with her. “Sexy was about the last thing I was feeling. I felt much more depressed than sexy” (Salinger 95). The prostitute’s pimp, Maurice, exemplifies greed when he uses violence to extort another five dollars from Holden (Salinger 101). It is not only the low class society that bothers Holden; he can not even stand ministers. Their phony voices they use when they give sermons (Salinger 100). Lawyers also leave a bad taste in Holden’s mouth. He thinks they are all right if they save lives of honest people, unfortunately he doesn’t see that happening. In his eyes they just make a lot of mo...
Holden never seems to have a pleasant time interacting with the adults and the world they've created. Holden describes the hotel he was staying at as being "lousy with perverts (Salinger 62).” At the hotel, Holden characterizes every adult he sees as a pervert. He does not know any of them but because they are grown up he sees them strictly as perverts, despite who they truly may be. However, Holden does try to fit in amongst these alleged “perverts” but later in the novel his inability to engage with a prostitute demonstrates how despite his efforts to belong in the adult world he is still childlike. Salinger uses Holden's childlike ways along with his inability to conform to societal normalities to express how he views the adult world as something he doesn't want to fully commit to. Salinger puts Holden is suspended development in order to prove how hard it is to fully belong in the adult world, especially if its occupants are already corrupt in their own ways. Throughout the novel Holden prefers the company of children over the company of adults as he believes adults to be fake and perverted. While at Ernie’s bar one of D.B.’s old acquaintances, Lillian Simmons, strikes up a conversation with Holden. Lillian hasn’t uttered the words to Holden when he prematurely deems her “strictly a phony (Salinger 86).” Holden wants nothing to do with
The term “gender gap” is often referred to a disproportionate of equality between male and female. By nature men are physically stronger than women, nevertheless, because men hold such a visible strength to the world that they are taken as the prevailing and powerful gender. The physical strength that men possess to lead society to create a patriarchal system that only man can make decisions and have authority...